sackcloth

The Hebrew or Greek which are translated into English as “sackcloth” are rendered into Chamula Tzotzil as “sad-heart clothes.” (Source: Robert Bascom)

Pohnpeian and Chuukese translate it as “clothing-of sadness,” Eastern Highland Otomi uses “clothing that hurts,” Central Mazahua “that which is scratchy,” Tae’ and Zarma “rags” (Source: Reiling / Swellengrebel), and Tangale as “torn clothes that show contrition on the body” (source: Andy Warren-Rothlin). In the English translation by Goldingay (2018), “put on sackcloth” is translated as wrap on sack.

“In Turkana, a woman removes her normal everyday skin clothes and ornaments and wears rather poor skins during the time of mourning. The whole custom is known as ngiboro. It is very difficult to translate putting on sackcloth because even material like sacking is unfamiliar. The Haya, on the other hand, have a mourning cloth made out of the bark of a tree; and the use of this cloth is similar to the Jewish use of sackcloth. It was found that in both the Turkana and Ruhaya common language translations, their traditional mourning ceremonies were used.” (Source: Rachel Konyoro in The Bible Translator 1985, p. 221ff. )

Click or tap here to see a short video clip showing what a sackcloth looked like in biblical times (source: Bible Lands 2012)

See also mourning clothes and you have loosed my sackcloth.

widow

The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “widow” in English is translated in West Kewa as ona wasa or “woman shadow” (source: Karl J. Franklin in Notes on Translation 70/1978, pp. 13ff.) and in Newari as “husband already died ones” or “ones who have no husband” (source: Newari Back Translation).

The etymological meaning of the Hebrew almanah (אַלְמָנָה) is likely “pain, ache,” the Greek chéra (χήρα) is likely “to leave behind,” “abandon,” and the English widow (as well as related terms in languages such as Dutch, German, Sanskrit, Welsh, or Persian) is “to separate,” “divide” (source: Wiktionary).

See also widows.

Translation commentary on Judith 8:5

She set up a tent for herself: For tent Good News Translation has “little shelter.” This is probably intended to be like the “booths” during the Festival of Booths (Good News Translation “Festival of Shelters”) of Lev 23.33-43 and Deut 16.13-15. In Neh 8.14-18 such booths or shelters were built on rooftops. The roof would probably be the most private part of the house. Roofs in the Hebrew culture were flat rather than peaked, and used for a variety of purposes. There was normally a stairway on the outside of the house leading up to the roof. Judith was able to set up a “small shelter” (Contemporary English Version) on the roof in order to live in it. So one may translate “She moved into a small shelter she had made on the roof of her house.”

Girded sackcloth about her loins and wore the garments of widowhood: For sackcloth see 4.10. About her loins means “around her waist.” Good News Translation adds “In her grief” to explain the function of the sackcloth, but it mistakenly omits the additional reference to the garments of her widowhood. Judith wore the sackcloth in addition to widow’s clothing. This is quite clear in 9.l, where she seems to be wearing it under her other clothes; there Good News Translation is clear that she is wearing another garment. At 10.3 she appears to be wearing sackcloth over her other clothes. These are incongruities inherent in the text, and the translator, as well as readers, will have to live with them. Moore suggests that the author may not have noticed them. An alternative translation model for this final sentence is:

• She wore clothes that showed that she was a widow, and underneath she wrapped sackcloth around her waist.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Judith. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2001. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.